


Running Man

by kalirush



Category: Doctor Who, Torchwood
Genre: Action, Gen, Robots, Violence, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-02
Updated: 2012-04-23
Packaged: 2017-10-15 07:38:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/158560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalirush/pseuds/kalirush
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack and the Doctor shut down a game show- the the kind of game show where the contestants only leave in body bags.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Arena

**Author's Note:**

> Done for the Winter Companions prompt "Resolutions", and because I was having a bad day.

Jack took his coat off. He skinned out of his collared shirt, leaving him only in suspenders and undershirt. “Let’s do this,” he said to the Doctor, grinning.

The Doctor nodded, gaze fixed to the monitor in front of him. “Captain-” he said, and then stopped. He shrugged. “Good luck.”

“Never needed it,” Jack said, cheerfully, and dived through the hatch.

The tunnel dropped him into an ugly, urban cityscape. It was dark, and deserted. Lonely, grimey streetlights barely illuminated the broken hulks of destroyed cars and garbage cans. “Jack,” the Doctor said through the transmitter in his ear, “head north. The control center should be in that direction.”

“North,” Jack said. “Right. Should be easy.” He took his bearings, and turned. He hugged the wall, moving cautiously and listening for the sound of anyone approaching- not that he was likely to hear anything. Anyone who was still alive in this hellscape would have learned to be quiet by now. This city-that-was-not-a-city was really a set; a charnel house where prisoners fought and died for the entertainment of billions. It was like the Game Station again, but much less civilized. And just like the Game Station, Jack and the Doctor were going to end this- if Jack could make his way across two miles of terrain filled with deadly traps and deadlier contestants.

As he turned a corner, he met the first obstacle. He stepped carefully onto the sidewalk, and he knew immediately that it had been a mistake. There was a _click._ He’d stepped on a pressure plate. Panels in the walls snapped open, and small, flying robots streamed out. Jack dived back around the corner, pulling out his blaster. From behind him, he heard a voice.

“Our newest contestant is Captain Jack Harkness,” it said. “Originally a resident of the Boeshane Peninsula, Captain Harkness is wanted by the Time Agency for a very long list of unspecified crimes- sounds nasty! Facing off against him in his first battle here in The Arena are our very own killbots: 30 pounds of steel, lasers and a few surprises that Captain Harkness is going to find out about very soon. This ought to be fun, folks- if it’s not over too quick!”

The announcer-bot was a nice touch, Jack thought. It would make the contestants nervous, and maybe startle them into making mistakes. That they knew who he was was a bit of a surprise, but he had to give them credit for research.

The killbots floated, chittering, searching for him. Jack spun and fired, taking down the nearest one. The battle began in earnest. Bots swarmed him, lasers firing. As they got closer, they began attacking him with other weapons- plasma arcs, buzz saws, poisoned claws. Jack whirled and spun and fought. He was still standing when it was over. If he’d been anyone else, he would have been seriously wounded. Fortunately, he wasn’t anyone else. He reached for his earpiece. “Doctor?” he called.

“Keep heading north, Jack,” the Doctor answered. “You’re going to see a large, square sort of building. You’ll need to skirt the east side of it, and then head north again.”

Jack was relieved. He knew he’d survive this, but if the earpiece got destroyed, he might not be able to complete his mission without the Doctor to guide him. “Thanks, Doc,” he said, and moved.

The next trap triggered just as the building came into sight. Before he’d even realized that the attack was coming, he heard the announcer-bot behind him. “Aaand we’re back with Captain Jack Harkness, folks. He survived the killbots, and, I’ve gotta tell you, I thought he’d be in worse shape after that! Maybe we need to upgrade our ‘bots again. Still, we’ve got an exciting battle in store for you now!”

Suddenly, Jack was attacked by three velociraptors- or at least what Hollywood had always seemed to think velociraptors looked like. They had powerful teeth and razor sharp claws. Jack fired at the first one as another one flanked him. He felt its claws ripping into his back, tearing muscle and sinew down to the bone.

“Our android dinosaurs are renowned throughout the Great and Bountiful Empire for their accuracy and attention to detail. We’ve spared no expense in making them every bit as deadly as their paleolithic ancestors- and I’m sure our Jack here appreciates the effort!” The announcer-bot’s voice was irritatingly cheerful.

Jack tried to get his back to a wall, to limit their access to him, but they were faster, and he’d started out in a bad tactical position. One of the dinosaurs swiped at him. He tried to twist away, firing at it again, but it was too late. He went down, blood and intestines leaking out of his belly.

“Oh, too bad!” the announcer-bot said, although it didn’t sound sad. “We’d hoped he’d last longer. Still, he’s not the first contestant to go down to the raptors!”

They were on him, pinning him to the ground with their claws. Jack screamed as sharp teeth tore at his flesh. The dinosaurs were _eating_ him. He wouldn’t have thought that robot dinosaurs would bother. Still they had said that they prided themselves on attention to detail.

“Jack?” a voice said in his ear, sometime later. “Jack!”

Jack gasped. “Sorry, Doctor- dinosaur problems. I’m almost to the building.” Jack pulled himself upright, and took stock. His shirt was destroyed, and so were the lower parts of his pants, but his groin was still covered. Maybe they’d especially programmed the robots to avoid his pants. The idea made him laugh- that was Americans for you.

He started running. He’d lost too much time already. The Doctor was in a shielded location, but they still only had so long until the Arena’s staff found out where he was and broke in. He jogged around the east side of the building, looking for an opening to head north again. Just as he was about to turn the corner, someone tackled him from behind. Jack’s body went on automatic- he’d had centuries of practice in hand-to-hand combat, and the best training in dirty tricks fighting anyone could have. The other guy was stronger and faster, but he wasn’t fighting smarter than Jack.

“Well, this is an Arena first, folks!” He heard the announcer-bot somewhere to his left. “We’ve never had someone be eaten by the raptors and get up again. Captain Jack Harkness is still up and fighting, and this time, he’s up against 3-year veteran Hollis McKenney- Holly to his fans. Holly is a survivor, and in the last three years, he’s only twice let his opponent walk away from a fight. Jack’s certainly got his work cut out for him if he wants to keep breathing!”

Jack flipped, putting his opponent into a lock. “We shouldn’t be fighting,” Jack hissed into the other man’s ear. “I’m here to shut this place down. Help me!”

McKenney grunted. “No teams,” he snarled, breaking out of Jack’s grip, and slamming him to the ground. “We try, they send in the snipers and ‘disqualify’ us.”

Jack spun, kicking at McKenney’s knee. “I’ve got a man on the outside,” he said, as the bigger man crumpled. “We’re really going to take this place out. Just let me go- I don’t want to have to hurt you.”

McKenney grabbed Jack by the throat. “Won’t last long here, with that attitude,” he observed, and smashed Jack’s head back into the asphalt. For a moment, Jack saw stars- but it didn’t incapacitate him nearly as long as it should have.

“Run,” Jack said, as he slammed McKenney to the ground in turn. “Just run. You’ll be free in a day, if you survive that long.” Jack considered taking a dive- letting the other man kill him. But he couldn’t spare the time.

“Tell me another one,” McKenney snarled, and attacked again.

Jack sighed. A few moments later, McKenney was lying on the ground with a shattered knee. Jack had stopped short of killing him, for what that was worth. Jack, ignored the announcer-bot as it went on gleefully about his ‘victory’, and dragged McKenney to a relatively sheltered spot on the street.

“What are you doing?” McKenney screamed. “You’ve killed me, you bastard, what are you doing?”

Jack pulled his blaster out, and shoved it into McKenney’s hand. “I wasn’t kidding,” he told the other man. “Just survive another few hours. I’ll come back for you.”

Jack took off running. For a moment, he wondered whether McKenney would use the blaster on him- but no shot came. Jack kept going. “You’re not making very good time,” the Doctor observed, in his ear.

“Doing my best,” he said, lightly. “Traffic is a nightmare.”

“You should be coming to a sort of river thingy,” the Doctor said. “There’s a tunnel underneath the water on the north side, about 15 meters east of the road you’re on now. How long did you say you can hold your breath?”

“I guess we’re going to find out,” Jack said, grinning. Then he stopped grinning. He heard a loud noise over his earpiece- alarm buzzers, and something impacting heavily into something else.

“Jack,” the Doctor said. “They’ve found me. They’re starting to cut through the defenses- you don’t have long.”

“Better hurry, then,” Jack said, grimly.

The “river thingy” was an open sewer, choked with bodies and refuse. Jack ran along it to the point where the Doctor had said the tunnel would be, and dived in. The water tasted worse than it looked, and it was difficult to see through. Still, Jack could see the tunnel opening. He could also see the grate that blocked it off. He swore in his head, and surfaced.

“Captain Harkness is in the water- apparently, he’s trying to escape, ladies and gents! Apparently, he’s not aware of what we put in the water here. We don’t like people escaping, Captain Harkness.” Jack spun and fired. The announcer bot sparked, smashed into the barrier, and lay dead. It was a waste of a shot, but it was worth it to shut the thing up.

A little ways away, the bloated body of a young woman was floating on top of the water. It looked like there were still weapons on her belt. He swum over, silently apologizing for disturbing her. There was a knife on her belt, and he took it. As he turned away, he reached out quickly, and closed her eyes.

Then he dove again, and began prying the grate away with the knife and his sheer will. Eventually, he managed to break the grate open on the edge, enough to get his fingers in behind it. Bracing himself, he pulled with everything he had. The grate cut through the flesh of his fingers, and blood trailed away like smoke in the water. Finally, it gave way. Jack surfaced, gasping for breath. “I’m at the tunnel, Doctor,” he said. “Where to from here?”

“The tunnel will take you through into their command center,” the Time Lord answered, with urgency in his voice. “I can walk you through the destruct sequence once you get there, but you have to hurry.”

“See you on the flip side,” Jack said. He started coughing, and he immediately knew something was wrong. There was blood on his lips when he’d finished. “Dammit,” he swore.

“Jack?” the Doctor asked.

“There’s a weaponized plague in the water,” Jack said. “Modified pertussis, maybe. It doesn’t matter. I’m moving.” He took a deep breath, and dived.

The tunnel was long- much too long for any normal human to have survived. Jack ran out of air long before he surfaced, but it took longer for him to asphyxiate than for a regular person. He kept going, kept swimming, ignoring the hypoxic burn in his lungs. Everything started to go dark, and Jack knew that he had moments until his brain shut down from lack of oxygen. He might revive here- but he might not. He didn’t always come back if there was no air. Jack braced himself against the side of the tunnel, and pushed with all his might.

He was surprised when his head broke the surface. He pulled himself out onto the floor and breathed, and coughed, and breathed for a moment. When everything cleared, he looked down at himself. He was starting to cough up small chunks of tissue. It was his lungs, going to mush inside his chest. He fought down the nausea, and got to his feet. “Where to from here, Doc?” he croaked.

“Just get to a console, Jack. Should be one up the stairs.” Jack heard a grinding noise. He didn’t need to be told what it meant. He ran, spots forming in front of his eyes.

At the top of the stairs, there was a closed door, with a security scanner. He bashed open the panel with the dead girl’s knife, and shorted the door. There were three very surprised techs on the other side. “Anybody looking to fight me?” Jack asked, with a gleam in his eye. He realized that he must look insane- soaking wet, stripped to the waist, the knife in his hand and his face covered in his own blood. “No?” he asked, suppressing a cough. “Out you go, then.” He herded them back the way he’d come, and pulled the door shut.

“I’m here,” Jack said, sitting down at a console. He coughed, helplessly, and it felt like knives in his chest. “Tell me what to do,” he croaked. There was no response. “Doctor?” Jack asked, tapping his earpiece.

“Jack!” the Doctor cried out, as if from a distance. “Change of plans. I sent a virus to your earpiece! Load it into the console! Security key-” There was a buzzing, and then silence. Jack cried out in frustration, slamming the wall. It set off a coughing fit that left Jack’s head spinning. He didn’t think he’d get anything else out of the Doctor. He pulled the earpiece out of his ear, thinking for a moment. The Doctor’d programmed a computer virus, and sent the information to his earpiece. It was just a receiver, though. It wasn’t supposed to be able to store data- unless-

Jack noticed the button on the side. There was a quick playback feature. It could only play back a few seconds, but if the Doctor had sent the virus as coded sound, and if he could configure the console to accept audio data, and if he could amplify the playback- he set to work. He had to stop once to cough up more blood, trying desperately to get enough air to keep his body going. He was running a fever now, and his head was foggy. He ignored it, rewiring the console with a knife and his fingers. He didn’t have time to die.

“Anybody looking to fight me?” His voice said, in slow motion, emitting from the console’s speakers, tinny and distorted. Jack leaned against the desk, trying to steady himself. “No? Out you go then.” And then there was a momentary burst of static. Jack hadn’t noticed it the first time; it must have lasted less than a second. Like this, though, amplified and extended, the computer might be able to understand the input. Jack waited, tense, trying not to cough, in case it screwed up the audio input. A moment passed. “I’m here,” Jack’s voice said, in slow motion. “Tell me what to do.” And then the computer flashed, and the words _SECURITY KEY:_ appeared on the screen.

 _TARDIS_ , Jack typed, coughing, wiping blood from his mouth. The computer didn’t accept it. _Rose. Gallifrey. Jack. Martha. Earth. Bad Wolf._ He paused, leaning his head forward against the console. _Everybody lives_ , he typed. The screen went blank, and then every monitor in the room filled with whirling hexagons and circles. The doors in the room clicked, and opened.

Jack smiled, and started coughing again, worse than ever. This time, he didn’t even try to push past it. He fell to the ground, convulsing, suffocating, burning, drowning in his own blood. It was a terrible way to die, but at least it would be over soon.

\----------------------------

Epilogue:

He was in the TARDIS when he woke. The grating dug into his back, but he didn’t mind. “You got her back!” he said, grinning.

The Doctor, standing at the console, looked down at him. “Took you long enough,” he said. “You missed all the fun.”

“Regrowing lungs is a bitch,” Jack said, cheerfully. “Did it work?” he asked. “Did we shut it down?”

“The Arena is destroyed,” the Doctor said, grinning back at him. “They’re never going to rebuild it- not here, and not on this scale anyway. In ten years, this place will be banana groves as far as the eye can see.”

Jack sat up, noting that he was still half naked. His coat and his shirt were folded neatly on top of one of the coral struts. “Doctor,” he said, more seriously. “McKenney- did he make it?” He stood, and reached for his clothing.

“Big fellow?” the Doctor asked, feigning unconcern. “Bad knee?”

Jack started buttoning. “That’s the one,” he said.

The Doctor punched keys and turned knobs. “He made it,” the Doctor said, quietly, smiling. He spun the video screen towards Jack, and he could see McKenney on an improvised crutch, fighting killbots while a group of teenagers made for the gate and safety. “He was brilliant.” The Doctor looked over at him. _You were brilliant_ , he didn’t say.

“You weren’t bad yourself,” Jack said, pulling his coat on. “Where to next?”


	2. A Guy Walks into a Bar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was written, sort of, for Sanguine Ink. Mainly because she planted the idea of using McKenney again in my head, and here this is. Sorry it's not plotty and actiony like the last one; I kept trying to make it be, but this is what came out. Maybe I'll write another one later that has a plot. :)
> 
> Set after Children of Earth.

“You!” Jack ignored the voice behind him. It was loud, and very slightly drunk, and probably not talking to him. No one knew him here- he’d seen to that. He was light-years from Earth, and centuries from the wasted colony world that he’d once called home. He was sitting in the cheapest bar he could find, drinking alone, and wishing that his liver didn’t regenerate faster than the alcohol destroyed it.

“You!” the voice said, again, closer now. It sounded angry. “You broke my knee, you son of a bitch!” A hand grabbed his shoulder. Jack pulled it away. He whirled to his feet, taking a fighting stance without having to think about it.

The owner of the hand started laughing. Jack relaxed a little, and took stock of the other man. He was short, but powerfully built- and there was something familiar about him. Slowly, recognition dawned. “The Arena?” Jack said.

“Ahh- you remember now, you old bastard!” McKenney said, grinning. He sat down at the stool next to Jack. “What was your name?” he asked. “I didn’t pay attention to the announcerbot, back then. Tried not to know the names.”

“Jack,” he answered. “Holly, right?”

“Hollis,” the other man said, with a grimace. “Or Mackie. I haven’t been called Holly since the Arena. What are you drinking?” he asked.

Jack laughed. “Anything with alcohol in it,” he said.

McKenney grinned. “My kind of drinker,” he said, and signalled the bartender.

“How long’s it been?” Jack asked, curious. He hadn’t paid close attention to his current year.

“Three years now, right?” McKenney said, taking possession of his drink. “Hell of a thing. They say that the studio execs went up on charges a year back, did you hear that?”

Jack shook his head. “Haven’t been paying attention. But it’s good, I guess. If people are saying it was criminal, maybe it’ll be a while before someone tries to build another one.”

“Can you imagine?” McKenney downed half his drink in one gulp, coughing a little. When the coughing died down, he looked closely at Jack. “Thought you’d bought it,” he said. “After the gates opened, I saw that tall, skinny guy- friend of yours?”

“Yeah,” Jack said, swallowing his bitterness. “I guess.”

McKenney nodded. “There was an explosion in the Barrier, and he came walking out of it, not caring, like fire couldn’t burn him. Then he marched right up to Control’s front door. At that point, I decided I better leg it. Made myself a crutch, and was trying to get to my feet. By the time I was up, he came walking back out, carrying-” McKenney stopped, and shrugged. “By the looks of you, I figured you were dead. Your friend looked plenty pissed about it, too. Must have been a hell of a recovery you made.”

Jack nodded. “Pertussis in the water,” he said. McKenney winced. Jack finished his drink. “I saw video of you later,” he added. “Helping people get away.”

“The perimeter went down,” McKenney said, “but the killbots were still flying. S’funny- if the Arena had stayed in business, I’d probably had ended up killing most of those kids. But now, they seem to think I’m some kind of damn hero.”

That was too much, too close to his own pain. Jack gripped his empty glass much too tightly and looked away, closing his eyes, getting himself under control. “You okay?” McKenney asked.

“No,” Jack said. “Sorry. Look, I’m glad you’re doing alright-”

“But you’d like me to leave you alone, so you can get back to the serious drinking you were doing.” Jack heard McKenney shift in his chair. “Who died?” he asked.

Jack did not smile. “I’d rather drink than talk,” he said.

McKenney signalled the bartender again. “Was it the skinny guy?”

“The Doctor?” Jack said. He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “No. Not him. Not this time. Would have been nice if he’d bothered to show up, though. Maybe I wouldn’t have had to-” Jack shook his head.

“The Doctor?” McKenney asked, dubiously. “That’s his name?”

Jack nodded. “He’d have found another way,” he said. He couldn’t stop himself. The words just tumbled out. “If he’d been there, he’d have found some other way. He’d never have done what I did, and he’ll probably never forgive me, either.” Jack reached for his drink. He definitely needed more alcohol.

McKenney let out a short, sharp breath. “So it’s somebody you killed, huh?” Jack nodded. McKenney took a drink. “Yeah,” he said. “I know what it’s like to kill people.”

This was getting out of hand. Jack shouldn’t have started this conversation. He just wanted to be left alone.

“All those kids,” McKenney continued. “I mean, yeah, they used convicts in the Arena, but most of the people there were just people. In on minor drugs charges, or vandalism or something. They kept throwing them at me, and I just kept killing them- all those people that never did anything to me. You know what they tell me now?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “They say it wasn’t my fault, that the game made me kill. But I made the decision, every time. Them, or me, and I chose to be a killer every time.”

“It was my grandson,” Jack said, savagely. Maybe McKenney would leave him alone, if he knew what he was dealing with. “I had to choose: everyone else’s children, or mine. Millions of kids, or one. So I killed my own daughter’s son.”

McKenney was silent for a moment- long enough for Jack to hope that he was done talking. “Shit, man,” McKenney said, finally. “No wonder you’re trying to do suicide by bottle.”

Jack laughed. “I’d do suicide by anything, if I could.” He started looking around for more alcohol. “That’s the worst thing- I can’t even die. I should, right? It would be the decent thing to do. Maybe Alice would forgive me, then. But no.” Jack wasn’t sure why he was still talking.

“What do you mean?” McKenney asked.

“What you were saying about the Arena?” Jack said. “You were right. I bought it. I was dead. And then, like I always do, I got better. I can’t ever die.” His voice was getting louder. “So now, what the hell am I supposed to do? You don’t just live with something like this.”

McKenney shrugged. “I guess you have to,” he observed. Jack stood up, turned to leave. “I mean, fuck, we all have to,” McKenney continued, taking another swig of his drink. “You think there’s something after this? After you die, I mean?”

Jack laughed again, short, and ugly. “Just darkness,” he said. “I hate to tell you this, but there’s nothing there.”

“I thought about it,” McKenney said, and there was a nakedness in his voice that stopped Jack from walking away. “Kept waking up in the middle of the night with their faces staring at me. All those pairs of eyes, all dead. I thought, maybe I owed it to them. But what would it mean? What point would there be? They’re gone. Me being gone wouldn’t change that. Just one more corpse.”

“There’s no justice in the universe,” Jack said, quietly.

“No,” McKenney said. “There isn’t.” He finished his drink, draining the last drops. “Come with me,” he said. “I have something for you.” Jack hesitated. McKenney stood, made his way to the door, and waited expectantly. Finally, Jack followed him.

They walked in silence, and not altogether steadily. McKenney led him to a building only a few blocks away from the bar, and then to a bare, ugly apartment three floors up. McKenney let them in, and then walked into the back room.

“Usually, when a guy invites me back to his place, I already know why,” Jack called.

McKenney laughed. “Bet you do,” he said. “No, just a second. I remember where I left it-” McKenney emerged, holding a small, wrapped object. “This is yours,” he said.

Jack took it, and unwrapped it. It was his blaster, meticulously cared for.

“I didn’t think I’d ever get the chance to give it back,” McKenney added.

Jack held the gun loosely in his hand. “What am I supposed to do with this?” he asked, helplessly.

McKenney shrugged. “What does a guy like you ever do with a gun?” he said. “You used it to save my life. Maybe someone else will need saving, down the line.”

“I’m not-” Jack said, his voice heavy with grief. “I don’t think saving people is what I’m good for anymore.”

McKenney looked at him, appraisingly. “No,” he said. “You’re wrong. Once you start being the kind of guy who doesn’t just walk on by when somebody’s in trouble, you can’t not be that guy anymore. You never stop hearing them when they cry for help.” He paused. “I know that. That’s what you did to me.”

Jack leaned against the wall, eyes shut. “All I did was give you a gun,” he said, quietly.

“You didn’t kill me,” McKenney said, evenly. “You cared whether I lived or died. It got me thinking- maybe it wasn’t just me or them, kill or be killed. Maybe there could be mercy.” He looked away, embarrassment plain on his face.

“Maybe someday,” Jack said. “Not right now. Not for me.” He turned, and walked away.

McKenney watched him go, not trying to stop him. Jack took the blaster pistol with him.


	3. Devil's Run

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is still Sanguine Ink's fault for suggesting I use Mackie again. I wrote the second chapter because of that, but it wasn't actiony enough for my taste, and I had it kicking around in my head that I should write one more story with him. Around the time _A Good Man Goes to War_ aired (warning, spoilers), I started writing this. I ran across it recently in my "unfinished" file, and decided to finish it off.

It’s five years later before they meet again, by Mackie’s reckoning, at least. It’s by accident again- they nearly walk into each other at a street fair. 

“Jack?” McKenney says, surprised.

“Mackie!” Jack says. He smiles, and pulls McKenney into his arms. It’s a big difference from the last time they spoke, and that’s good. 

After a moment, McKenney works himself free from the hug. “How’ve you been?” He asks. He doesn’t reference whatever it was that had been killing the man the last time they spoke; doesn’t ask questions about the impossible nonsense he’d been spouting in his drunkenness. 

“Well enough,” Jack says, grinning. “Buy you a drink?” he offers.

“Water,” McKenney tells him, “I’m off the booze. But, yeah.”

Later, in the bar, Jack orders them both soft drinks. McKenney wants to tell him that it’s fine, Jack can drink if he wants to, McKenney’s been sober long enough now that it doesn’t matter. Then it occurs to him that maybe Jack’s on the wagon for the same reasons he is, and he leaves it alone. They talk, and they hardly mention the Arena. Jack talks about his work, his team. McKenney talks about this woman he met a little while ago, and his improbable job in the finance districts.

It’s about two hours into the conversation, and they’re relaxing into it, and McKenney’s starting to wonder whether Jack’s going to invite him to go somewhere a little more private, and he’s trying to decide what his answer will be, and then there’s a funny-sounding noise from somewhere in the distance. Jack tenses up immediately, and there’s this flash of _hunger_ in his eyes. He’s on his feet immediately, moving toward the noise. McKenney follows him into the back room of the bar. For no reason that is immediately obvious to McKenney, there’s a big blue box there. He frowns, because the damned thing looks familiar. He thinks back to the Arena, and he remembers seeing a flash of something just that color-

The door opens. A tall, floppy-haired kid wearing a bow tie pokes his head out. 

“Doctor,” Jack says, and that’s funny, because didn’t he say that the “the Doctor” was the name of that skinny guy in the suit from the Arena? 

“Jack!” the kid says, and steps out. He looks serious, his eyes dark. Then he seems to notice McKenney for the first time. His face breaks into a smile. “Is that Hollis McKenney?” he asks, and McKenney’s getting hugged again. “Look at you!” the madman says, pulling back and grinning at him. “All... alive, and everything!”

“Doctor,” Jack says, breaking in, “Did you come looking for me?”

The Doctor's face falls. "I'm gathering allies, Jack. Someone's trying to get to me through one of my companions, and I won't have it." There’s something dangerous in his expression. Somehow McKenney knows that, different face or no, this is the same man he met eight years ago on the best and worst day of his life.

Jack's quiet for a moment. Then he smiles, his teeth sharp. "Sign me up," he says.

McKenney is about to say goodbye to the pair of them when Jack turns to him. "You in, Mackie?" he asks.

McKenney considers. "No more killing," he says, cautiously. "I'm done with that." 

The Doctor grins so wide it looks like his face is going to split. "Wouldn't have it any other way," he says.

The ship is- well, what the ship is. Jack is at his elbow, and steadies him. "It's a time machine," he says. "Alien tech, pocket dimensions, bigger on the inside..."

As McKenney is getting his bearings, a tall guy in Roman armor walks into the room. He'd look like someone on his way to a costume party if his face wasn't washed in grief and rage and fear. McKenney's old instincts tell him that the sword at his side is real, and that this man knows how to use it.

Jack apparently doesn’t see that, though- or doesn’t care. "Ave Centurion," he says suggestively, and whistles.

The Roman looks startled. "Excuse me," he says, sounding bewildered. "What?"

"Don't start," the Doctor says, sweeping back into the room. "That's to Jack, not you, Rory. Rory, this is Jack. They call him Captain. Jack, this is Rory. They call him the Last Centurion, for obvious reasons.” He breaks off and points at McKenney without looking at him. “That’s Hollis McKenney, and I think they call him Mackie. We're meeting in the library as soon as I've collected a few more people." Then he sweeps out again.

“Rory, huh?” Jack says in the silence that follows the Doctor’s exit. “Friend, or traveling companion?”

“Er-” says Rory, looking sort of uncertain and awkward. It spoils some of the effect of the outfit. 

“I’ve traveled with him a few times,” Jack offers, smiling. “Don’t mind me, just making small talk.”

“We’ve been traveling with him, yeah,” Rory says, and his face goes dark. “Me and my wife. She’s-” He breaks off, like he doesn’t know what to say.

“Your _wife_ ,” Jack says with new understanding. “That’s what this is all about.”

“Yeah,” Rory says.

“The Last Centurion, huh?” Jack asks, and McKenney recognizes this as a deliberate change of subject.

“I’m a bit Roman,” Rory says, and his hand rests on his sword like he takes comfort from it being there.

\--------------------

Rory’s wife is named Amy. The Doctor flashes a picture of her up in front of the assembled crowd- red-headed and pretty. She’s being held in a place called Devil’s Run, and there’s at least one army between the Doctor and her. They’re discussing strategy, and the Doctor’s moving people around like pieces on a chessboard. Rory stands next to the Doctor, quiet and imposing in his centurion’s armor.

“If your sisters are going to teleport in,” he tells a green-skinned woman named Vastra, “then we’ll need to disable the jammer.” He points at a map. “It’s down in the lowest levels of the base. Someone will have to sneak in at the right moment and shut it down.”

“Sounds dangerous,” Jack says, grinning. “I’m in.”

The Doctor looks up at him. “You’ll need to make it through at least 6 levels, and you’ll have about seven- maybe ten- minutes to do it in. Any more and they’ll either find you or notice the jammer’s down.”

“We’ll want a small team if we’re going to have a hope of keeping the element of surprise,” Jack points out. “One man would work.” He smiles again.

“Two would be better,” McKenney says.

Jack turns. “Are you sure?” he asks. “Like I said- dangerous.”

McKenney shrugs. “It’s been eight years since I did anything really dangerous. Wouldn’t want to think I was getting rusty.”

“Right,” the Doctor says. “That’s settled, then. What about the satellites orbiting the base?”

\--------------------

Jack strips down to a t-shirt and suspenders. He’s wearing a holster under his coat, and McKenney recognizes the blaster hanging in it. Jack wears it comfortably, with the unselfconsciousness of long habit. McKenney’s glad to know he made some kind of peace with that gun, and with whatever it meant to him.

Jack tosses him a uniform jacket. “I always did look good in uniform,” he says, grinning. The uniforms look like familiar military camo, but the insignia are strange and the rank says “Cleric”.

McKenney dresses. “You ready to play soldier?” he asks Jack.

“Play?” Jack widens his stance, straightens up, changes his bearing. His hair’s military-short, and he suddenly looks exactly the part. “Captain Harkness reporting, sir!” He salutes, and then relaxes. “Were you ever in the service?” Jack asks.

McKenney shakes his head. “I was in a gang. Finally got caught lifting a car, and you know what happened after that.”

Jack nods, shrugs. “We’ll only be able to pass a basic inspection,” he says. “We don’t have time for a more complicated cover. Are you ready?” he says, suddenly serious. 

McKenney nods. “We get as far as we can by looking like we’ve got someplace to be, and then we do whatever we have to to shut down that jammer.”

Jack looks at him, seriously. “Mackie,” he says, reaching out to touch McKenney’s shoulder. “No playing hero. We watch each other’s backs, but I don’t want to see you trying to take any bullets for me, okay?”

“Let’s go,” McKenney says. “We have a job to do, right?”

\--------------------------

They teleport in just outside the asteroid’s jamming field. They’re wearing jet packs and breath masks; not a full suit. It’s a risk, because it means that they only have seconds to get inside the base before they freeze to death, but not having to take off a suit saves them at least a minute. There’s the shock of displacement. Before the cold even hits them, Jack and McKenney are throttling the jet pack controls full out. They’re headed for the entry hatch that they’re praying will be where the plans said it was. Five seconds at full burn has them slamming into the hatch with more speed than is comfortable. Jack hits just to the side, but McKenney’s right on. He reaches for the airlock controls, his fingers clumsy from the cold and the thick gloves he’s got on. Three seconds to key the lock controls, and then he and Jack tumble into the chamber, shivering as the warm air floods in. 

Jack shakes it off, and then starts stripping off his mask and pack. When he’s done, he strips McKenney’s too. McKenney’s too cold to manage it himself in the time they’ve got. When the lock finishes cycling (63 seconds), Jack and McKenney exit the airlock cautiously. There’s no one in the corridor. Jack turns, and keys the controls to flush their gear back out into space where it won’t be noticed. 

McKenney wants to run. There's a clock in the back of his mind, ticking down the seconds they've got left. There don't seem to be nearly enough, but running would look suspicious. He ignores the too-familiar adrenaline pumping through his system, and falls in line next to Jack. Jack walks medium-fast; purposeful, but not desperate. His face is schooled into an expression of intent. All his body language says "I'm busy, don't bother me." McKenney does his best to match.

McKenney’s counting the corridors. He and Jack memorized the layout of the part of the base they’ve got to run through, but McKenney’s paranoid they might have gotten turned around. He half wants to ask Jack whether he remembers, but asking would look suspicious, so he keeps that expression of bored purposefulness frozen on his face and continues walking. They pass two people on the way to the first passageway down. Neither one looks twice at Jack and McKenney.

There’s an ID swipe on the door down. Without being asked, McKenney shifts position to block Jack from the view of someone coming around the corner. He counts 38 seconds, and then Jack’s got it open. They slip inside, and McKenney notices that Jack’s had to damage the lock getting in. Someone’s going to notice that, eventually- McKenney hopes it won’t be anytime in the next five minutes. They’re in the stairwell then, and Jack’s flying down the stairs. The gravity on the asteroid is slightly less than Earth-normal, and it lets them move faster than they could usually.

Two levels away from the target, everything goes pear-shaped. They turn a corner and come face to face with a pair of soldiers. “What are you doing down here?” one of them asks. “Let me see your authorization.”

And then McKenney’s moving, and it’s like his brain doesn’t even get a vote. It’s been eight years since he was in a fight, but he didn’t survive the Arena by thinking before he got in a fight. 6 seconds, and he has one of the guys down and Jack’s grabbing his arms. “Mackie!” he’s shouting, and suddenly McKenney realizes he was _this_ close to killing the unconscious soldier. “Leave him,” Jack says, when he realizes that Mackie’s in control of himself again. Then they hear an alarm. Jack swears. “If they find us, it’s all up,” he says. 

Which is true. If the base is put on alert, they’ll just be waiting for the Doctor’s people when they ‘port in. “Go on,” McKenney says, his voice low. “Finish the op. I’ll hold them off.” Maybe if they find McKenny, they won’t be looking for Jack.

“Like hell,” Jack says. “They’ll send a team before they activate an all-alert. The Doctor only needs a few minutes once we get the jammer down. We disable the team quick enough, it’ll take them at least five minutes to realize it. That should be enough time.”

McKenney raises an eyebrow. “You and me against how many guys?”

Jack grins. “We’re Arena vets,” he says. “They haven’t got a chance.”

38 more seconds, and the team is on them. There are eight of them against him and Jack, and they all have to be disabled before a call can get out.

The adrenaline makes everything sharp, and McKenney is moving before he can think again. It feels good. He knows, suddenly, what the booze was replacing, and why it was so hard to quit. With some detached part of his mind, he thinks that he could be more addicted to this than he ever was to the alcohol. The rest of him is spinning, kicking, shoving men to the ground. Ripping comms apart, shoving their heads together. His knuckles are bleeding, and their blood spatters over his arms. 

And then they’re down- not all unconscious, but their comms are destroyed and none of them are getting up soon. It’ll take them a while to report in, which is what they need. None of them are dead, McKenney thinks. No more faces to add to his list. He wasn’t sure he could do this without killing. He’s a little surprised, but pleased. 

Jack is already running, and McKenney lopes along behind him, matching pace. One of the soldiers’ swipe cards opens the next stairwell, and then Jack vaults over the railing. McKenney doesn’t even think about it before he follows. They’re only going two more levels down, and the lower gravity means that they don’t fall as fast as they should. It’s almost easy to hook the railing and swing into the right stairwell. McKenney guesses they’ve got maybe 90 seconds when they swipe the next door open. 

Jack is going flat out now. McKenney is glad he kept in shape, or he’d never have kept up. Even so, McKenney’s a step behind him. Which is good, because as Jack turns the corner, there’s a hail of laser fire, and Jack drops. His eyes are empty. McKenney doesn’t let himself hesitate. He shoulders Jack’s body up in one smooth motion, holding it in front of him as a shield as he moves into the path of fire. The lasers fire again, but the blasts are absorbed by Jack’s corpse. Distantly, McKenney thinks he should feel something about that, but he doesn’t have time. Anyway, this is not the first time he’s pulled this particular trick.

McKenney throws Jack’s body into the men who are firing on him, and follows it with a full-body tackle into them. One of them is going for his comm, and McKenney rips it out. The implant comes away bloody. McKenney slams his head into the ground and throws another guy’s laser down the hall. Now that he’s in the middle of them, they can’t fire on him without hitting each other, and that was their only advantage. None of them is a fighter in his class, and he takes them apart. Part of him is angry and hurt for Jack, but he still doesn’t go for killing strikes. Death is forever, and these guys were just trying to do their jobs. Then they’re down, and there’s 30 seconds left to bring the jammer down in-window, and McKenney hears gasping behind him. He doesn’t turn. Instead, he uses the guards’ lasers to blast open the door.

This part isn’t elegant. There’s no computer code or shut-off sequence. McKenney just smashes and shoots and smashes. They won’t be able to bring the jammer back online when he’s done with it. 

He hears footsteps behind him and whirls, weapon in his hands. _Non-lethal shots_ , he reminds himself. No more faces to add to his nightmares. 

But it’s Jack. “Hey, Mackie,” he says, grinning. “Nice job.” McKenney gapes. _Death is forever_ , he thinks, but apparently not for Jack. His clothes are scorched and holed, but the flesh underneath is clean. 

While his brain is trying to sort that out, Jack grabs him and taps something into his wrist computer. There’s a blink, and a twist, and they ‘port out.

They land in the Doctor’s ship. Jack’s misjudged the relative grav position, and they fall about six inches, landing in a heap on the ground. Jack laughs. McKenney pushes him. “What the hell was that?” he asks, because Jack was _dead_. McKenney knows a corpse when he sees one, and anyway, even if he hadn’t been dead then, he wouldn’t have survived McKenney using him as a shield. 

Jack laughs again. “Didn’t I tell you?” he says, cocking his head at McKenney. “I can’t ever die. I always get better.”

And McKenney feels like an idiot, because he _did_ tell McKenney that, but he didn’t take it seriously. He didn’t think Jack _meant_ it. “You asshole,” he tells Jack, and then punches him full-strength in the shoulder.

Jack just takes it, laughing, and picks himself up again. “You were pretty amazing back there,” he says. 

“You coming on to me?” McKenney asks, half-seriously.

“Do you want me to?” Jack asks, grinning. “C’mon,” he says. “The Doctor’s busy right now, so I’ll just grab a few things and we’ll be off.”

Then Jack’s stripping off his uniform while he walks. He grabs his coat from the locker room, and McKenney follows him into a workshop. Jack breaks into a grin, and looks back at him. “Just what I needed,” he says, and then he looks up at the ceiling. “Thanks, darling,” Jack says, “He can be _so_ unreasonable,” and McKenney is pretty sure Jack’s not talking to _him_.

Jack fiddles with his wrist computer long enough for McKenney to change out of the uniform he was wearing. He feels better with his own clothes back on. He looks at the torn skin of his knuckles. 

“You need help with that?” Jack asks. “There’s a tissue regenerator around here somewhere.”

McKenney shakes his head. “It’s fine,” he says. The wounds will swell, and itch, and hurt like crazy. But it feels like cheating to just fix them. If he’s going to go around hitting people, he should suffer the consequences. 

Jack shrugs. “Let’s get you home, then,” he says. “Now that I’ve got this working again, no need to wait for the Doctor. Our part of the op is over.”

“Don’t you want to see whether she’ll be okay?” McKenney asks. “Amy, her name was?”

Jack smiles. “Of course she’ll be okay,” he says. “The Doctor’s coming for her.” 

There’s an undercurrent of wistfulness there, and McKenney remembers Jack, drunk and despondent, snarling _would have been nice if he’d bothered to show up_.

Jack reaches out his hand, and McKenney takes it. There’s a flash, and his stomach twists, and then they’re back at the bar.

“Do I know how to take a guy out or what?” Jack asks, grinning.

It’s surreal, being back. McKenney could almost believe that it was some kind of hallucination, except for his bruised and bloody knuckles. 

They make their goodbyes slowly. Jack is a hell of a kisser, and McKenney almost regrets the woman who’s waiting for him and her preference for monogamy. 

And then Jack’s sauntering off down the street, that coat flapping behind him. He’s got all of time and space to travel in. McKenney doubts that he’s ever going to run into him again. Still- “Sometime again,” he calls. “And take care of yourself in the meantime, Harkness.”

“Sometime again,” Jack calls back, with a grin.


End file.
